isers of ultra-processed products of course won't do anything illegal,
but they still have a lot of scope. Centre is an octupus in a bikini. Don't ask

Access pdf of November 2010 editorial here
Access pdf of November 2010 commentary (main thesis) here
Access pdf of January 2011 commentary #1 (profiling, soft drinks) here
Access pdf of January 2011 commentary #2 (Food Guide Pyramid) here
Access pdf of February 2011 commentary ('carbs') here
Access pdf of March 2011 commentary (nutrition labelling) here
Access pdf of April 2011 commentary (hydrogenation) here
Access pdf of May 2011 commentary (first of two on meals) here
Access pdf of June 2011 commentary (second of two on meals) here
Access pdf of August 2011 commentary (ultra-processed products) here
Access pdf of November 2011 commentary (bread, hot dogs) here
Access pdf of this month's editorial here
Access pdf of this month's commentary (advertising) here

We started what has turned out to be a long series of WN commentaries on ultra-processing in November 2010. The entire series, and two associated WN editorials, can be accessed above. Author of the series is Association founder and Council member Carlos Monteiro, of the school of public health at the University of São Paulo. He stresses that the series is teamwork, and this month we resume with a commentary by his colleague Jean-Claude Moubarac, a new member of the Association from Canada, who has come to public health nutrition through anthropology.

We should explain that the term 'sexing up' in the title of Jean-Claude's commentary is generic. It means over-emphasis or exaggeration, past what can be justified. 'Over-egging' is a similar expression, not applicable to ultra-processed products, which are not likely to include a significant amount of egg. All the same though, sex is one way to sex-up puffs for ultra-processed products:

Well, let's say glamour. We included the picture in the middle in the interests of balance, to avoid all the images of almost naked women being advertisements for Coca-Cola®. The basket of stuff on the lap of the woman at left, is salad. The boys who made images like that at right, and also the one at left on the home page, must have had a lot of fun. Here is a horizontal version:

Love that disembodied hand... Innocent days... There are two traps to be avoided, in any examination of the images and iconography of advertising, in our case of ultra-processed products. One is to be facetious, and the other is to be solemn. Advertisements can be witty and elegant, and some are great popular art. They are also serious business. In his commentary, part of Jean-Claude Moubarac's point is that over the decades, countless billions of dollars have been spent employing some of the most ingenious and intelligent people to be found in any profession, all of whom have been and effectively doing the same thing. This is to make calorie-dense fatty, sugary or salty ready-to-eat or ready-to-heat 'fast' 'convenient' ultra-processed dishes, snacks and drinks, attractive – and yes, even sexy. Does this affect the dietary habits of customers and consumers? Does this question really need to be asked?

As Kenneth Rogoff, previously chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, says: 'Food processors get paid for adding tons of chemicals to create a habit-forming – and thus irresistible – product. Along the way, scientists get paid for finding just the right mix of salt, sugar, and chemicals to make the latest instant food maximally addictive; advertisers get paid for peddling it; and, in the end, the health-care industry makes a fortune treating the disease that inevitably results'.

And what is the answer? For a start, Elizabeth Gaskell's resounding creed: 'Evils once recognised are half way on towards their remedy'.

Honouring Cicely Williams

Cicely Williams, the first public health nutritionist? (left), Patti Rundall of Baby Milk Action (centre) happy 20th birthday, WABA Malaysia (right)

In his column this month Claudio Schuftan suggests that Cicely Williams (1893-1992) (left, above) can be seen as the first public health nutritionist, at least in modern times. Why, can be expressed in one word: kwashiorkor. It was Cicely Williams when working in the Gold Coast (now Ghana) in the 1930s who identified the disease. The name, a word in the Ga language, means 'the disease of the deposed child', or 'the disease a baby gets when the next baby is born'. That is to say, the Ga people already knew the key cause of the disease. It was, and is, premature weaning, in environments where general nutritional status is fragile.

Later in the 1930s Cicely Williams worked in Malaya (now Malaysia). Incensed by artificial milk companies sending young women in white coats to city tenements, selling tinned milk claimed to be best for infant health, in 1939 she made a speech to the Singapore Rotary Club with the title 'Milk and Murder'. Interned by the Japanese in Changi Gaol, she made sure that all the babies born in that prison were breastfed, and all survived. She then was the first head of mother and child health at the newly formed World Health Organization. She is the founding mother of the International Baby Milk Action Network, whose director of policy is Patti Rundall (centre), and also of World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action. Appropriately centred in Malaysia, WABA celebrated its 20th anniversary last year (right).